The already dim light that was dangled listlessly at the center of their room dimmed further and further until it provided no light at all, the only light that remained was from the wavering flame of the incensed candle that Martha had set alight besides her small, simple shrine to the emperor at her bedside.

She lay across from him, her blonde hair and pale complexion shaded a gentle orange by the flickering candlelight, she looked peaceful, restful in fact. He would think her asleep if not for slight glint of moisture upon her eyes, they were open, black pupils and ocean-blue irises visible glistening through the shadow cast over her eyes by her own light. Blankly, she stared, eyes locking on Carrell’s as he stared back at her. His will was the first to give in as he looked away, a dumb smile barely stifled on his face. His eyes found the boy now.

A pale frame wrapped in heavy robes and a thin blanket lay splayed out ungraciously on the mattress, the black of his hair stood out against the white mattress above him, whilst his own complexion made Martha look tan in comparison. It was only now that Carrell could appreciate just how truly gaunt the child was, cheeks, tight and thin, sharp cheekbones pressed against the skin. His hands poked out from between the robes, slender, bony digits sprouting from a just as skeletal hand. The boy stirred slightly, revealing his palm, the mottled white of scarred and burnt flesh. The scar upon his palm was that of a human skull, a jagged crown upon it’s head.

Carrell faintly remembered the inhabitants of the boy’s backwater feudal world to have murmured something about ‘The King Of Thorns’ but what the king was, or signified had eluded Carrell, and he had felt no need to find out. He still felt no need.

The most important part about the boy was what Carrell had looked at last. The black collar clamped around his throat. The boy had tried to pull it off earlier in the night, though Carrell's insistence that he not play with it, and Martha’s fist had persuaded him to stop fiddling with the thing. Whilst Carrell liked to think it was his stern words that stopped the boy, the black bruise on his forehead advised him that it was likely the latter.

Much like Martha, Carrell might have thought the child asleep, if he couldn’t see that the boy was squinting, his eyes searching the room whilst pretending to have them closed.

Carrell’s eyes settled on Martha once again, the wavering orange light that danced across her face suddenly vanished, the three of them in nothing but endless black.

Something wrenched at the man’s gut, his head pounded and his lungs screamed as his heart beat against his chest all of a sudden.

He heard it slowly, a gentle murmur at first that rose to a chorus of screams and howls that swallowed all sound other than their own.

Carrell sprung from his bed, fumbling about in the dark for his locker, he heard Martha sidle up behind him, felt her hand on his shoulder as she fumbled and groped about as well.

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“Hiverat, that you?” She screamed down his ear.

“Yeah, your lockers on the left.” His response came just as loud. Carrell couldn’t hear it clearly, but was sure that he heard a faint ‘beep’ as he pressed his thumb onto a space beside his locker, the door swinging open listlessly. His hand reached forwards, feeling around the side of his locker until he found it, a thin, cylindrical object. He pushed the switch up on it’s side and a beaming shaft of light erupted from it.

Hurriedly, he tugged it free from the locker and stuck it between his teeth, illuminating his locker with a brilliant white glow that reflected off of the dozen or so guns that were tossed about within. His eyes settled on a simple thing, a wood-stocked shotgun from a hive world he had once been sent to under Hargraves order. The previous owner had engraved the stock with a symbol that looked like two broken links of a chain, the sign of that hives aptly named gang, and rebel force, ‘The Chainbreakers’. Who had picked up a bad habit of freeing slaves and the poor from mining camps and the like.

Apparently, the entire shotgun had been custom made by it’s previous owner, and Carrell had to hand it to him, the owner was a good craftsmen, for a xenos-hybrid that is.

He pulled the shotgun free, slinging a bandolier of shotgun shells over his shoulder as well. His eyes glanced over to Martha, who had just managed to wrestle an oversized longsword from a tangle of habits, armour and religious iconography. The blade reflected the light off of Carrell’s flashlight, the metal of the weapon practically glowing. He could see the sacred inscriptions that had been emblazoned into the flat of that blade as she took it up in both hands. He’d never tried to read them before, and doubted he could.

The wailing and screaming was silenced for but a second, interrupted by the thundering crack of lasfire in the hall outside.

One look at Martha was all he needed, she met his eyes and nodded in response. Carrell glanced back to the boy, Dread was currently recoiling from the noise, collapsed on the floor and clutching his head, screaming, though his wails seemed to merely join in with the cacaphony that flooded the ship.

Carrell slammed his fist onto the button besides their door, though the heavy steel door didn’t move, no grinding of gears. He stuck the button again. Nothing.

He knew that Martha wouldn’t hear him over the wailing and screaming, but muttered nevertheless “If the power is completely gone...” The screaming rose to a violent crescendo again as the door infront of him crunched and bent violently, before being torn free from it’s hinges and vanishing into the swirling nebula in front of him.

The ship around him was being torn a part, heavy bulkheads being ripped as there bolts were wrenched from their sockets. The vastness of space around him swirled and morphed. It was no black abyss, no, it was a nebula of swirling colours, changing in hue and intensity violently.